TALKING POINT
TALKING POINT
Despite the diversity
of farming, the
industry needs to
unite and pull together more than
at any point in
recent history,
says Henry Fell
FARMERS WEEKLYS leading article, "UK industry needs a united voice to turn catastrophe around" (Opinion, June 21) hit a number of nails firmly on the head. Thank goodness for your leadership and common sense.
But a key question remains – will anybody listen? Will anybody do anything about the problems besetting the UK farming industry? Or are most people so complacent, or so bound up with their own problems, that they lack the energy or the time to tackle our problems.
We live and work in a divided industry. The divisions are easy to find: Landowners, owner-occupiers, and tenants. Big farms and small farms and everything in between. Conventional versus organic farmers. Livestock and crop producers. Sadly, there is a decreasing number of young trained and inspired people. Then, we should not forget bird watchers and eco-activists buzzing around the fringes.
We make the mistake of believing that all this is an economic problem, that it will all go away once sterling weakens. Certainly the strength of the £ has affected us but it is not central and we could learn to live with that.
It is a political problem. Ever since the Repeal of the Corn Laws in the mid-19th century and the days of the industrial revolution, the British Treasury thinking has focused firmly on the virtues of importing cheap food and selling industrial products. Certainly, a couple of somewhat inconvenient wars intervened but they soon got back on track again with urban consumers support.
So, how do we set about containing that ? As FWs leader asked: How much longer must we tolerate UK politicians squandering what remains of our once great farm industry?
Certainly, the answer does not lie in voting politicians out of office. We do not have enough votes to accomplish that goal. No; our target has to be that of influencing the media for it is the media which control politics.
The RSPB knows and acts upon that fact, as does the Soil Association, Greenpeace and Friends of the Earth. But apparently we, in farming, have yet to learn that fact.
My colleagues and I in the Commercial Farmers Group have been talking with the NFU and the CLAB, and others, for more than two years. We have been pressing for a two-stage action plan. First, we want to see the creation of a highly professional, well informed, media relations group. Second, the creation of a Confederation of British Agriculture, along the lines of the Confederation of British Industry, in order to bring together all the disparate parts of the farming industry.
I wont say that we have made no progress, but it is not great. Of course, personal pride and status comes into this; we are dealing with human beings after all. But the issues at stake are more important than pride and status.
The political contrast with America could not be clearer. At the United States Department of Agriculture Outlook Conference earlier this year, US farm secretary, Ann Veneman said – "Homeland security is the cornerstone of all policy, agricultural and elsewhere" and "Food must be kept safe and never used as a weapon."
Can you imagine DEFRA secretary Margaret Beckett saying that, even less, Chancellor Gordon Brown? On this side of the Atlantic, we just continue to import infected meat.
So, I repeat the question – what are we going to do about it?